


in your arms under golden rays

by silveryspring



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Confession, F/F, Genderswap, Kissing, alcohol involved, doyoung is overthinking, fluff and sunshine, girlfriend!doten, photographer/model au, so deep, they're girlfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-08-29 23:03:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16753144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveryspring/pseuds/silveryspring
Summary: Find out unwritten words under sharp angles and soft curves





	in your arms under golden rays

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dorothyjones](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=dorothyjones).



> wrote this for the sole purpose of coping with my anxiety
> 
> no i lied. i wrote this because one day my friend - dorothy - just waved at me and demanded it. i wrote so that she can leave me alone. 
> 
> and i like this very much???? it's 3k words of my thirst

Ten tucks her hair behind her ears and glances back at Doyoung over her right shoulder, giving her a subtle wink. One hand is placed casually on her hips, legs spread evenly. A black dress hugs her figure tightly, the back of it crisscrossing and weaving across the pale white of her skin. Her blonde hair cascades down her back, the only splash of color in the very monotone scene. The makeup is minimal, just a thin life of black outlining Ten's eyes and a nude lipstick as the makeup artist felt that a simplistic look would be more effective for this line of clothing.

"Is this alright, Doyoung?" Ten says to her photograph, holding her pose.

Doyoung takes a step back and surveys Ten. She knows Ten's form so well that it could be her own, knows exactly what poses the other looks best in, knows how to emphasize everything that needs to be emphasized. It seems like it's been years and years she's worked with Ten but in reality, it's only been about one and a half year. Ten won't let anyone else photograph her except Doyoung, which has caused slight hassle in the past as various clothing lines have specific photographers they like to use but if it becomes an issue then Ten simply rejects them and finds another company.

It's not like Ten needs more money anyway, her home back in Thailand is well-off, or so she says.

"Lean a little more on your right leg, please," Doyoung tells Ten, and she does so.

"Like this?" Ten asks.

Doyoung nods. "Now you're good. Okay. Just look at the camera, and don't smirk, don't." Ten has this terrible habit of wanting to smirk seductively at any camera pointed her way and even after months of being in the modeling business, she still has to be told. "Keep a straight face, please?"

She laughs. "I know, Doyoungie. Just take it." Her face straightens out and she looks uninterestedly at the lens, raising her eyebrows just a fraction.

Doyoung nods again before taking ten consecutive photographs.

"Good job, last pose now."

Ten smiles, spinning around to face the camera and sitting down. She pulls her knees to her chest and tilts her head back slightly. Doyoung gives the signal to the man operating the giant fan who hits the switch. Air rushes out, blowing Ten's hair back from her face and teasing it.

Doyoung sucks in a breath as Ten's hair dances around her face, exposing the skin of her throat. Every single time it's always the same - she finds herself taken aback by Ten, which sounds silly because Ten's a full-time model who is supposed to be that beautiful. It shouldn't come as any great surprise to Doyoung. There are many companies paying to have Ten's face blown up on a poster in their shop, Ten's supposed to be stunning, but even after all this time Doyoung still hasn't gotten used to it.

Kim Doyoung is shallow. It's merely a fact -- that Doyoung is shallow. She, like most people, is attracted to beautiful appearance and pretty faces and she will be the first to admit that. There is nothing she loves more than just keeping watching Ten, admiring the slender curve of her wrist, the rise and fall of her ribcage as she breathes, the way Ten looks in back and white. Doyoung would like to open her up until there is nothing but bare bones like ladders, leading step by step to a beating crystal heart, trapped beneath the curving stark white of her ribs. She would like to kiss Ten passionately, too, winding one hand into her hair and nipping at the exposed skin of her neck.

There is nothing Doyoung loves more than just Ten.

Ten tilts her head, silently asking, good? Doyoung scans her, tightly drawn with her knees to her chest but not rigid. Relaxed. Doyoung moves a hand and Ten shuffles to the left a bit. The fan continues to blow her hair out behind her, little strands of it getting caught around the slight curve of her jawline.

Doyoung smiles to herself before giving Ten the thumbs up.

The other tilts her head back a little further and stares down the camera, giving her best condescending look. Doyoung presses the release button and captures another few shots.

Ten smiles once she's finished, getting to her feet and coming over.

She says, "I think these will be good."

"They're always good, Ten," Doyoung tells her, dismantling the camera now that the photo shoot is over.

There's a silence where she doesn't look up, and then she hears Ten say quietly, "They're not. Sometimes I look really hideous in them."

Doyoung frowns, glancing up and sees the look on Ten's face. "They're perfect, girl. They're always perfect, you can't really believe otherwise."

"Whatever you say." Ten snorts, but her voice sounds miles away from the enthusiasm it held before. Doyoung gives her a look but Ten just shrugs and turns away, picking up her bag.

It looks as though she's ready to leave, and before Doyoung can realize what she's doing, she calls out: "Want to go for a drink later?"

Ten turns and fixes her with an inscrutable look. They very rarely see each other outside of work and university friend gatherings. It takes so long for an answer that Doyoung starts to think she's not going to get one at all, but eventually, Ten nods and says: "Yes'' with one of her sincere smiles (here is the thing: Doyoung has made a list to tell the differences for each of Ten's smiles - there are the 'photograph smiles'' that Doyoung sees every photo shoot, the ones where Ten's smiling but not really smiling; there are the 'family smiles' that are reserved for specifically her family, little secretive smiles that seem to speak everything and nothing at once; and then there are the 'real smiles' which are ear-to-ear, complete-joy, cheek-splitting smiles that Doyoung's fragile brain can barely handle. This one is one of Ten's real smiles and Doyoung can swear her heart actually stops for a second before restarting.

"Wonderful," She tries not to beam too much. It's better to be subtle because Doyoung would be done if Ten ever suspected that she was a little bit in love with her. Ten will not be disgusted, she had flings with girls before, or so she tells Doyoung, but Doyoung doesn't want to take any risk. "Coffee?"

Ten laughs. "Oh my god, Doyoungie," she shakes her head in mock despair. "Let's go get drunk."

And they do. In fact, Doyoung becomes so inebriated that she tells Ten no less than tenth times that she's in love with Ten and thinks that the other has the best legs in the entire world. Ten just laughs and says, ''Come on, I think you've had a bit much'', to which Doyoung tries to protest that she's completely sober and yes, she's fine, she can walk by herself, but Ten doesn't take no for an answer.

That's how Doyoung ends up in Ten's apartment, stumbling into the bathroom to throw up all over the pristine white toilet. She realizes, through the haze of alcohol - though being sick everywhere has sobered her a little -- that she hasn't been this drunk in about four years, not since she graduated from university and decided that business wasn't really for her and her passion for photography won in the end. And then, to her horror, Doyoung realizes that being around Ten when drunk was not the best idea she has ever had.

Ten knocks on the door, saying: "Are you okay in there?" Doyoung thinks she hears her model giggling a little.

"I'm fine," she croaks.

There's a sigh and the door is opened. Ten crosses her arms as she studies Doyoung's face and all Doyoung can think is, _how is she sober and I'm the one throwing up everywhere?_ "You've gotten yourself into a right state, haven't you?"

"Go away," Doyoung groans, leaning her forehead against the cold wall. The nausea has mostly subsided by now but moving doesn't sound particularly appealing. "Leave me alone, Ten."

Ten rolls her eyes and Doyoung hears the clicking of her heels as she crosses the room and grabs Doyoung's arm. "Come on, Doyoungie, get up." Ten pulls at her. "You're not sleeping in my bathroom because you'll be a little bitch in the morning about how much your neck hurts. Let's get you to the bed."

"I feel like shit," Doyoung manages, but stumbles over her feet and follows Ten through the living room. Ten guides her to the bedroom and orders her to sleep before disappearing behind the door.

Doyoung groans before throwing the pillow over her head and burrowing as far into herself as she can.

//

In the morning, Doyoung suffers from the worst hangover in the history of the world, and it suddenly hits her that she's in Ten's house and Ten's bedroom and on Ten's bed and the other's sitting opposite her, watching her with that familiar little smirk dancing on her lips.

Doyoung doesn't know if this is the world's cruelty or benevolence - either way, Ten's here and Doyoung thinks she might be dying if the pounding in her head is anything to go by, and Ten is wearing the white dress that Doyoung bought her on her birthday last year, and, well, fuck, Ten is stunning. She's a catastrophe, a calamity with a fruit problem the size of South Korea and an obsession with landing herself in the gossip column of newspapers but oh my god, is she stunning. Not in a conventional way, in a modern, made-for-photographs, slender and almost dainty way. Doyoung cannot describe it, not in words. The only way she can describe Ten is through a camera lén, speaking in exposure and shutter speed and aptitude. The right amount of flash to capture the glimmer of her eyes, the ISO setting that captures the shadows in the hollow of her collarbones, and the monochrome setting - well, Doyoung thinks that nothing is more beautiful than Ten pinned down to a piece of paper, reduced to nothing but black and white, stripped to the bones.

Ever since their first meeting years ago, Doyoung has associated Ten with shadows, and she thinks she might have been the first to see the ones carefully hidden behind those eyes.

"Good morning," Ten says, tilting her head and smiling fully. "Are you fine now?"

Doyoung pulls herself into a weak upright position, narrowing her eyes to slits as the light seeps through the cracks in Ten's blinds. "No, and stop smirking."

"Okay," Ten says, bypassing smirking and full on laughing now. "I don't think I can't."

Doyoung frowns. The memories of last night are hazy and she thinks of sepia photo filters and noise levels and gaussian blur; she thinks of Ten's mouth and how red it was from her lipstick, how it shone in just the right amount of light; she thinks of her own mouth, loosened by too many cocktails and spilling secrets onto the floor that she'll never be able to gather up.

"Ten, I... well..." She swallows, tongue thick and heavy. The pounding in her head matches her own heartbeat.

"What?" Ten replies almost immediately, turning fo face Doyoung from where she had been adjusting an ornament. Her eyes are brights and earnest, rimmed by smudges of last night's makeup.

"I'm..." Doyoung shakes her head - a wrong action, the world is spinning. "Whatever I said last night - I was drunk, I didn't mean it, so whatever I did or, or said to you, it probably wasn't true."

Ten looks at her for a long time before replying with an "Oh."

Oh. Doyoung has no idea what on earth 'oh' is supposed to even mean.

Is Ten glad? Upset? Even just thinking about her answer (okay, of course Doyoung can see it, she's not that hungover anymore and smart enough to see the hurt layering it) makes Doyoung's head ache.

And then Ten's gone before Doyoung can even blink and before she has time to get up and walk out, Ten's back, pushing a glass into her hand and saying: "Hangover cure, it'll be gone within the hour'' before leaving for good this time.

Doyoung hears the front door slam and then nothing but a resounding silence.

///

Doyoung thinks in colors and in maths and in lighting (and she blames it on the finance major she joined in the university). She thinks of taking Ten apart, piece by piece and then building her back up again, getting caught up in Ten's sharp angles and smooth curves. Doyoung thinks about kissing her and telling her that she may love her and thinks of the hurt expression on Ten's face three days ago before she left. And then she realizes that she never wants to see that expression again, especially not directed at her because she's never seen Ten quite so unhappy, not even when her previous love broke her heart clean in two.

(Doyoung also thinks it's strange about the way Ten described it - clean in two. Like there were no ragged edges, no aching holes, no sharp angles, sliding together like tectonic plates and snagging on memories of two winters spent as one half of a pair - a clean break.)

Doyoung thinks about how Ten's face fell at the old cliché - I was drunk, I didn't mean it - and thinks that she really does think a bit too much. But there's one thing she knows, really knows, and that's that she never wants to see that expression again, and especially not directed at her because she doesn't think her fragile heart could handle that again.

So, this is what she has. She was very, very drunk. She told Ten that she loved her. Doyoung was not lying. She also told Ten later that she didn't mean it because she was very, very drunk. Ten was upset for some reasons. Doyoung is trying to come up with the reasons but all she's got is that Ten might possibly have wanted her to mean it.

But that's stupid because she's Ten and she could have lover worth a thousand of Kim Doyoung if she wanted.

So why doesn't she?

There is only one conclusion that Doyoung can draw from all of this and that is the slim chance that Ten might like her back. Like, as in _like like. Like._ She tries the word out on her tongue, feeling its gentle vowel and the way it catches between her teeth. Like can mean a lot of things but this time,Doyoung is sure she knows exactly what kind of like it is.

The kind that scares her more than she’d like to admit.

Three days later — after going over every alternative solution and possible outcome, after calculating every way this could go, after making and scrapping dozens of formulae and equations before Doyoung finally realized that people can't really be defined by numbers and ambiguous letters though it would be much simpler if they could — three days later, she makes her way back to Ten's house.

The second she presses the doorbell, she instantly regrets it.

The button is black and the lighting here isn't good - there are no highlights on the button, it's just flat back and she doesn't like things in one solid color, Doyoung likes spectrums and infinite shades and slivers of light. Not flat black.

She's considering making a break for it when Ten's voice comes through the little speaker, cracking and almost indiscernible but still Ten.

"Who's there?"

Doyoung breathes. "Me."

She can almost hear Ten rolling her eyes as she says. "Yeah, good on, genius. Who is 'me'?"

"Doyoung." She answers, slowly.

There's a long pause and all Doyoung can hear is the static sound of Ten's breathing through the speaker until finally, she says, "Come on up." The buzzer sounds and the door opens.

Doyoung decides to take the stairs instead of the lift because it is likely to give her more time to think, more time to prepare for what she's actually going to say to Ten when she arrives. So far, she has come up with nothing. She's five floors away and she still has nothing. Three floors. Two. One. The last flight of stairs. Still nothing. Ten is going to be the death of her, Doyoung feels.

At the door, she still has nothing.

Doyoung knocks, just to be polite, and Ten opens it and smiles, just to be polite. What her smile is really saying - and it's only after months and months of learning Ten from the inside out that Doyoung knows this is the 'please go away, I really don't want to talk to you right now and it would be much easier if you left' smile (or that's how Doyoung would put it, how Ten would put it is slightly different and more of the 'fuck off and leave me alone, you dipshit')

"Hello," Doyoung says.

"Hello to you too," Ten says. "What do you want?" Her mouth is still in the rigid shape of her smile. Her photograph smile.

Doyoung bits her lips: "To apologize."

Ten raises an eyebrow and crosses her arms, leaning against the door frame. It's meant to intimidate Doyoung. It doesn't. "For what?"

"Uh, I think what I said was, erm - I don't think what I said." Doyoung blinks rapidly, what she's trying to say is 'Oh, Ten, I'm very sorry about the other night. I think you misunderstood me when I told you to ignore everything I said while drunk. That's not what I meant. I never wanted you to find out about how I felt when I was severely intoxicated, I would much rather have been in my right state of mind when I told you that I love you but certain circumstances appear to have fucked that one right up. I love you and I'm sorry," but what comes out is, "Oh my god, I love you."

It's Ten that blinks this time, staring at Doyoung until she regains composure over herself and says, "Okay, whatever helps you sleep at night, Doyoung. Great."

She shakes her head and attempts to slam the door in Doyoung's face but Doyoung's one hand is already here, blocking it. She takes on long look at Ten - smudged eyeliner from the day before that she didn't remove, pale face, narrowed eyes in a mask of irritation but she can see the way Ten's biting her lip in anxiety, collarbones jutting out under the straps of her thin top, hair hanging limply to her elbows, waving slightly as it passes the curves of her shoulder - and kisses her.

Doyoung has imagined this moment before, about her lips touching Ten's, about her hand winding its way into Ten's hair, but she realizes that every stray thought about it has been lacking something so painfully obvious and that is the feel of Ten on here. Here, she can feel every crack, every contour of Ten's skin, all the secrets Ten never told her. Here, she realizes that she was missing something all along as Ten takes the lead, locking the fingers of her right hand into Doyoung's left and pressing her against the wall of the narrow hallway and that is something Doyoung cannot capture through a camera lens, something she cannot edit to perfection, but that's good to because maybe it doesn't need editing, doesn't need the exposure turned up or the shutter speed reduced. Something that doesn't need to be caught from the right angle or have shadows in all the right places.

Something that is Ten, just Ten on her lips, Ten on her feet to reach Doyoung's mouth, Ten's hand in her. Ten.

And there's a breath, so quiet that she barely catches it but they're Ten and Doyoung so of course she does and it's Ten saying against her checkbone, "I love you, love you', sweet and soft and more than Doyoung had always pictured it.

It's Ten and Doyoung's learnt the hard way that there is no accurate way to capture her with technology because the real Ten is always more than Doyoung could ever imagine her as. So she smiles and kisses Ten again, gently this time, modest and quick, and thinks she could spend more than forever here, if her girlfriend asked.

**Author's Note:**

> m


End file.
